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Monday, October 26, 2009

Scavenger Hunt!

Wow, I just got tired out from typing that title. I am wiped out and I didn't do all that much yesterday.

OK, let me back up. I'm a member of DWNY, which stand for Doctor Who New York. My husband is one of the founding members, because he's just that cool. Doctor Who is a British science fiction show. If you've never seen it and want to check it out, all you need to know is that he's a alien time traveler.

DWNY has events at least twice a month. Usually, there's a pub meet, where we meet in a pub and talk about Doctor Who, and a video meet, where we go to someone's apartment and watch a few episodes and eat a lot of junk food. It's a great way to get to know people and both HA and I have friends that we see separate from the group.

A few months ago, we had a pub meet where there were 50 of us (so many that I was a little afraid to see so many of us at once). Someone pointed out that we have so many new people who don't know anyone. People join the group, meet a few people and then hang out with at every meet after that. Even with 50 of us there, there were a few newbies wandering around looking for someone to talk to.

The suggestion, "we should have party games so everyone can get to know each other," quickly morphed into plans for a Doctor Who Scavenger Hunt. I volunteered to run with the idea and had most of the plans scribbled out before I went home.

To my amazement and great relief, 17 people showed up to play, including a family of 5.

I wanted to keep it cheap, so the teams had to take pictures of themselves at different Doctor Who-related locations around Manhattan, or with Doctor Who-related items. And they were allowed to come up with their own places and things. There was an episode that featured the Empire State Building, so they had to take a picture with the ESB in the background. One character is known for wearing a certain style of military coat, so some teams went to Army/Navy stores and one team even found the exact coat. (Partial credit was given for a similar coat and a photo taken in front of a Closed-on-Sundays Army/Navy store.)

One team even found a red Lambourgini just like the one featured in the Season 2 premiere of Torchwood (one of the spin offs). I gave them quite a few points for sheer randomness.

The same team took a picture of a building featured in the Spiderman movies because the costume designer for Spiderman was the costume designer for Doctor Who in the 70s. We disallowed that because, just, no.

The prizes were bags of Doctor Who toys, books, magazines and videos, donated by several members. We had so many that the top 2 teams got prizes, and the other 3 teams got posters.

After sending everyone off, the 3 judges hung out for a bit, went to the apartment where everyone would be winding up for the monthly video meet and hung out some more.

But when the contestants started turning up, HA and I leapt into action. He loaded photos onto a laptop for judging. You can see some of them on the event's Facebook page. More will be added during the week. After about an hour of judging, deciding how many points to award for a picture of The Brooklyn Bridge (as featured in a Doctor Who audio drama), and speedily figuring out everyone's scores, I was worn out, but really enjoyed being the only one who knew the results until the episode we were watching was over. I was also very tired and in need of salty snacks.

So I'm tuckered out, but a good time was had by all. I'll write up instructions on how to organize one of these events yourself (using the pop culture reference of your choice) if there's any interest.